USA

September 13, 2006

By Compiled from wire service reports by Chris Gaylord

Comair was using an outdated chart of Lexington's Blue Grass Airport when one of its planes took off on the wrong runway and crashed in flames, and the airline is now urging pilots to use "extreme caution," according to an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press. Comair received a new chart of the Kentucky airport on Friday – two weeks after the Aug. 27 crash killed 49 of the 50 people on board. The previous chart hadn't been updated since January, despite recent changes to the taxiway route.

Detroit's striking teachers and the school district reached a tentative contract agreement Monday night, clearing the way for a possible return to work after 16 days on the picket line, the union said Tuesday. The Detroit Federation of Teachers' 9,500 members may vote on the plan Wednesday, and classes could start as early as Thursday for about 130,000 students.

Drugmaker Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. on Tuesday ousted Peter Dolan as chief executive at the urging of a federal monitor, who found that a patent deal violated an agreement with prosecutors. The deal was with a Canadian competitor to keep a generic version of the blockbuster drug Plavix off the market. General counsel Richard Willard will also leave the company.

Jonathan Martinez, a 10-year-old Salvadoran boy who was apprehended while trying to cross the US border on his own to find his mother, can stay in America at least until next summer, ruled an immigration judge Monday. Jonathan can live with his mother in Inglewood, Calif., while the family prepares an asylum claim to keep him here. The case will argue he does not have anyone to take care of him in El Salvador, making him susceptible to gangs and violence.

Hewlett-Packard chairwoman Patricia Dunn will step down from the board of the computer and printer maker in January amid a widening scandal involving a possibly illegal probe into media leaks, the company said Tuesday. She will remain with HP as a director.

The debut of Katie Couric as the "CBS Evening News" anchor gave the program its first No. 1 finish in the weekly ratings in more than six years. Last week, the CBS newscast averaged nearly 10.2 million viewers per night, up by more than 3 million, Nielsen Media Research reports.